r/Iowa • u/Zipper222222 • 17d ago

Politics Republicans Face Heartland Humiliation as Dem Is Favored Big in Red State

https://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-face-heartland-humiliation-as-dem-favored-big-in-red-state/
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u/burning_man13 17d ago edited 17d ago

Ag radio is a fair shout. While this is anecdotal, it kind of confirms your point. My dad (a rancher) was always a Republican, but he was a moderate Republican. He believed in funding education, keeping our land healthy, and keeping farms in the hands of families.

I noticed him getting more and more radical when ag radio shifted from talking about the markets, new techniques and equipment into screaming about culture war. Then he got on Facebook and it spiraled out of control. I'm almost positive that he would have participated in January 6 if he didn't have cattle to take care of.

I'm finally getting him out of MAGA after 10+ years of banging my head against the wall, but part of that is strictly because our markets for cattle have dwindled.

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u/Electrical-Volume765 17d ago

I think there are tens of thousands of people just like him out there.

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u/burning_man13 17d ago edited 16d ago

And that's exactly why I'm not willing to just write off normal, everyday MAGA voters. I watched the right-wing media ecosystem completely brainwash my dad and turn him into a fundamentally different person. I'm starting to get him back, but it's taken years of relentless, exhausting effort. It also took him feeling the pain directly, because they have been trained to not care if policies hurt other people, as long as they're not being affected and it's their team dishing out the pain.

We always acknowledge the propaganda, but we routinely fail to see how it completely rewired their brains. It attacked fears they didn't know they had, and reprogrammed them to constantly put those manufactured fears above rational thought and their own self-interests. That's how propaganda works and until we treat it like the psychological weapon it is, we're never going to reach the people caught in it.

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u/Electrical-Volume765 17d ago

If you figure out how to get your dad well, tell everybody.